# 1

# skills.

As I continually aspire to find a sequence to my content, I return to a moment in a school office years back. It was an interesting time of change in the school district I was working in - there had been a massive budget mistake that froze salaries at about the same time the housing recession hit. For a variety of reasons, ‘fear’ was a theme. Fear of losing your job due to budget cuts, fear of not addressing the needs of a student’s IEP and being the one responsible for the ensuing litigation, fear of being responsible for not taking the necessary steps to address a student’s health and wellbeing that resulted in their death by suicide, fear of being responsible for a school shooting - not addressing the signs.

Fear.

So all that was going on, and I was a brand new school social worker. As a school social worker, I feel as if I can speak on behalf of most whom work in Denver and the greater Denver area - we are not prepared for the role of a school mental health provider as it relates specifically to IDEA (special education law). Because I had little to no understanding of what it meant to be a special service provider on an IEP, I stuck to what I did know - teaching social and emotional curriculum, and ‘meeting kids where they were at’.

My office was conveniently located in the main office where guidance counseling lived - so there was no shortage of students that showed up wanting to talk to a busy school counselor. Since I really had no set schedule (I didn’t get the whole SPED thing) I was available for students. To move this story along - I got really good at doing suicide assessments. To be really good at suicide assessments includes a few main things:

1. Willing to sit with the student and be present, to listen with the intent to hear.
2. Willing to ask direct questions and be okay with the answer.
3. Able to fill out the suicide risk assessment and follow the process that is laid out for you.
4. Make a phone call home to a ‘parent’.
5. Transfer the student to the hospital when necessary.

Essentially you could say the same thing about threat/risk assessments. The processes are great.

But then what?

Obviously there is more to effective suicide assessment and intervention - and there are wonderful trainings and programs to support the issue and the processes.

The point in stating the above is that there was a process. Processes are great in the work environment - and probably in lots of other environments as well.

Processes give boundaries, lay a worn path, and allow for some routine and/or expectation. However, as it relates to suicidal ideation…there is more going on, clearly. Being really good at the 1-5 list is helpful, and people at work will like someone who is competent at addressing and moving toward the uncomfortable experience of students in this emotional state - but what is the change agent? What can be done to alleviate or lessen the outcome? When the student returns to school, we fill out a reentry form and create a safety plan. But what are the skills to teach in moving forward toward effective growth and sustainable outcomes?

Back to the ‘moment’ in the school office. I have this mental picture of myself. I could close the door and shut the blinds. Now and again I would do that. Sometimes I just needed a break. Other times I sat and cried because I didn’t know how to help. One moment stuck with me, and I remember so vividly asking out loud to the emptiness of the space - ‘what are the skills?’

I knew that I had gotten to a point where I had some validity in my competencies to do a job - maybe not the job SPED required - (the one I am quite familiar with now at the elementary level), but I was good at crisis, good at the extra - connecting and teaching social and emotional curriculum in the classroom setting, addressing the needs of students with undesirable behavior or lagging skills in managing emotions at school, being part of problem solving and expulsion programs, etc.

What happened in that office was a very raw and honest recognition that what I was doing was okay - but it wasn’t getting to the core. I wasn’t familiar with the effective skills (and affective) that got different results - that helped those hurting to manage the Big Feelings. What. Were. The. Skills.???????

I have always seen a bigger picture. I have always laughed at the context of humor more than maybe just the joke. I could see the greater need for teaching skills to disrupt the end results. I did not know what the skills were. I was convinced that I just happened to miss it - I didn’t pay attention when I was taught the skills, or I didn’t take ‘the class’ where the magical skills were taught.

So this is where I begin.

“What are the skills?” she asks herself over and over again. What are the skills that disrupt the undesirable outcomes?